S3E06: Vlad Glǎveanu "Possibilities emerge when we allow ourselves to wonder"

So as a top expert who has studied creativity for many years, how would you define creativity in the simplest term?

In the simplest terms.

That's a tough one.

That's a tough question.

So creativity is obviously very complex and there are standard definitions in psychology.

Like in psychology, people would say something is creative when it is novel, original and valuable or useful.

So it's a kind of a double criteria.

Novelty and originality have to do with how surprising or new or unexpected something is.

And value, does it serve a purpose? But actually, I have a wider definition than that.

And by the way, this doesn't really tell us how we are creative, but it's still useful to have as a definition, which is the emergence of meaningful novelties within and between minds and in society.

So meaningful novelties is a very wide category that includes anything from children's drawings to the works of genius.

That is so inspiring.

Thanks.

So from your social culture, psychological perspective, can creativity actually be trained or enhanced

Well, absolutely.

That's what makes a difference sometimes between somebody who works more on personality or even, well, cognition is very adaptable.

So cognitive scientists would probably say the same.

But from a social psychological perspective, yes, creativity depends on context.

It depends on the environment.

There are things we come with to this context.

We come with what creativity would call creative potential, if you want.

But to turn it into achievement, you need a specific environment.

So in education, we try to shape that environment.

So we create conditions for people to feel trust and safety, psychological safety, to be able to play.

And that's really kind of the engine of how they become creative.